To link to the entire object, paste this link in email, IM or documentTo embed the entire object, paste this HTML in websiteTo link to this page, paste this link in email, IM or documentTo embed this page, paste this HTML in website

74th Year No. 156 Good Morning! It's, Frida. March 19. 1982 2 Sections 18 Page. 25 i ents
Intense weather approaching Missouri
Fran staff and wire reports
A late- wint- er storm brewing m the Rockies
could trigger tornadoes and severe thunder-storms
through a wide area of mid- Amen- ca
today, the director of the National Severe
Storms Forecast Center has warned.
" Present indications are that this outbreak
wQI be more intense than the one this past
Monday mat spawned 23 tornadoes over Ok-lahoma,
Kansas and Missouri with five fatal- me- s
and millions of dollars worth of destruc-tion,''
Director Fred Ostby said Thursday
" It could be a dud, but it looks pretty po-tent,"
he said of the developing system. Ost-by
identified the areas most likely to be hit
by violent weather today as eastern Oklaho-ma
and Kansas, the northern half of Arkan-sas,
western Kentucky, the southern two- thir- ds
of Tflmrng and Indiana, and all of Mis- soo- n.
The local Weather Service was predicting
thunderstorms for the Cdumbia area
throughout today and into the evening
Ostby said it was too early to pinpoint se--
Forecaster calls storm ' pretty potent'
vere weather activity but advised keeping a
dose watch on the sky
" It's not producing much right now,' Ost
by said. " There was a lot of ram in Cahfor
ma. It's now into the Rocky Mountains
When it gets back over the Plains, it can re- inten- sify
AH our models from computers
are telling us a consistent story that it looks
like a real intense storm."
Ostby warned earlier this week that he ex
pected ' a rather active tornado season" this
year because of the relative rairp dti" ng the
past couple of years.
' We had 773 tornadoes last year, but the
number of killer tornadoes was down," he
said. " You just can't keep going on like that
year after year We normally have more
man 100 a year killed in tornadoes. Last year
there were 24, an an- tu- ne record low "
As Missouri braced for more severe
storms, a request for state aid to Johnson
County was presented officials m the wake of
Monday's hailstorm, which did an estimated
$ 15 million to $ 30 million damage there. War- rensbu- rg
Mayor Delores Hudson explained
Thursday that the range of estimated loss
was so broad because damage reports con-tinued
to pour in.
The hailstorm was part of the same sys-tem
that spawned the five tornadoes that
battered three counties south of Columbia,
causing an estimated $ 7 million m damage
Warrensburg suffered the heaviest damage
as golfball- siz- e hail pounded the aty for
nearly 10 minutes Monday night.
Mrs. Hudson said all of the city's 3,000 liv-ing
units were damaged. The downtown area
looked as ' if it had been shelled from the
second floor up, she said.
The hail caused roof damage to several
buildings and shattered about 3 000 windows
at Cental Missouri State University, public
relations director Carl Foster said.
Earl Bamhart of the state disaster plan-ning
and operations office toured Johnson
County Wednesday
Ostby said the damage would rank the
storm among the worst in state history
Other parts of the Midwest also are suffer
mg the effects of late- wint- er storms
The approaching thunderstorms promise
to swell muddy nvers even higher across
southern Great Lakes states where near- reco- rd
floods have dnven Hmiis from their
homes and pushed property damage past $ 31
million.
Thousands of volunteers in Fort Wayne
Ind , shored weakened rfjfcpg noldmg back
tons of water from the flooded Maumee, St.
Joseph and St Marys nvers
Workers packed sandbags around 4S
houses next to a dike that began to rupture
Wednesday night.
A wall of water will sweep through the
area causing the destruction of hundreds of
houses," Mayor Winfield Moses predicted in
the face of threats that the dike will burst
without more protection
Damage to the aty of 172,000 already has
reached $ 20 million as the greenish- brow- n
waters crested at second- stor- y levels
Wednesday
A nationwide appeal was issued by the Sal
vation Army for clothes, food, bedding and
personal supplies for the 8 500 people evac
uated in Fort Wayne
Five days of flooding in Indiana, Ohio and
Michigan, and a flurry of tornadoes that
raked the Plains earlier in the week killed at
least 15 people
Volunteers in the Illinois communities of
Rome and Spring Bay upstream from Peona
buftt sandbag dikes to contain the Illinois
River, expected to crest at 25 7 feet ( 7 7 me-ters)
7 feet ( 2.1 meters) over flood stage
Most of Peona s Water Street which runs
parallel to the nver was under water Thurs-day
lone show
A roomful of dreams
tantalizes Its visitors
ByJElieLobbia
BggsoQrian staff writer
Vivian HbHoway recently moved
into Senas' citizens' housing m Cali-fornia,
Mo. Her apartment is fur-nished,
and she isn t looking to build
anew home.
But mat didnt stop Ms HoEoway
from attending the opening of the
fifth annual Home, Lawn and Gar-den
Show Thursday atrthe Untversi
ty's Heames Center
" It reminds me of a fair," Ms Hol- low- ay
says. " This is the first tune
I've been to one of these shows, but
Fd come back again even if I weren't
gomg to buy anything '
The show does have a fan -- like at-mosphere
with luxurious and innova-tive
items such as whirlpools, name- fitne- ss
equipment nH solar- heatin- g
systems among more than ISO exhib-its.
A 20- by- SO- f-oot
( ft- b- y 18- mete- r)
replica of a showboat and river town
add to the almost dreamlike nature
of the show, sponsored by the Home- bande- rs
Association of Mid- Missou-- n.
The theme of me show, " The Great
American Dream It's still afforda- ble,-"
suggests that perhaps the
Ammran ideal of home ownership
has become a dream deferred.
High interest rates, plummeting
housing starts and an overall slug
gish market have made the Great
American Dream of owning a home
just that an unfulfilled fantasy
Bat the Hamebuflders Association
and Charlie Page Enterprises are of
fenng Missounans a chance to see
some of their dreams come to life
Stefanie Skala, executive secre
tary of the Hamebuflders Associa-tion,
says " This is an opportunity
tor people in the home building in-dustry
to get together and show their
wares.
Essentially, we are here to pro-vide
information, to consumers, but
some booths do sell things here It's
good consumer contact for them."
Delson Morns of UJ5. Steel agrees
He says his company has partici-pated
in the snows for the last five
years, and it always has been profit-able
Its definitely a good business
generator," Morns says We get a
lot of inquiries from people about
things sifcp siaacg for their hnyrppg "
Other local merchants, such as
Steve Dexter of The Woodworks,
Ltd., or Liza Healy Hogan of ERA
Real Estate say that while they may
not make a lot of sales at the show, it
helps to increase the public s aware-ness
of theirservices.
Displays are not limited to home- relat- ed
. terns. Tmftan jewelry and
gas- power- ed hang gliders are also
among the attractions.
Charlie Page, exhibit manager,
says be expects about 15,000 people
to attend the show, which runs
through Sunday The show runs from
2 to 10 pjn. today, noon to 10 pjn.
Saturday and noon to 6 pjn. Sunday
Mr and Mrs. Larry Hoyt of Laddo- m- a,
Mo , say they cant afford most
of the items on display, but came to
the show " just for ideas.'
Hoyt says. This is the first time
I've been here, and mere are a lot of
thmgs I see that I would like to do
myself, Use build some kitchen cab-inets
'
Stacse Smith, 5, right, and her sister, Shellie, 10, appear en-vious
of Ben Randolph 8 Ben s parents John and Diane Ran
dolph, 104 Aldeah Ave have an exhibit at the Rome Show The
girls are the daughters of David and Charla Smith Route 2 Columbia's an economical home
By Ftse Fuller
BflBWitrtan wforff writer
Good news from the Amencan Chamber of
Commerce Researchers Association It is cheaper
to fare in Columbia than in the average Amencan
aty 7.9 percent cheaper, to be exact
Colombia's fourth quarter index was 92.1 m the
group's 1381 Cost of Living Survey, which included
236 cities.
In the survey, an average aty would have a cost
of living index of 100 Net surprisingly, New York
City's cost of ! mag is expensive, with an index of
greater than 130
The survey results may help offset the news of
record unemployment in the county reported ear-lier
tots month. The January unemployment fig-ure
for Boone County was 6.3 percent up from
43 in December The national unemployment rate
forJanuary was 8L5 percent
The index is based on prices of 59 items that a
middle- manageme- nt executive family might pur-chase,
according to Stephanie Pinkstaff of the
Cost of living less
than U. S. average
Consumer Concerns Division of the Columbia
Chamber of Commerce
The items fall in six categories, and each aty
gets an index for each category as well as an over
all index.
For Columbia, the six indexes were ffi 1 for uti-lities,
88.4 fw- boustn-g,
91 4 for transportation 954
for grocery items, 95 7 for miscellaneous goods
and services and 98.9 for health care
The survey compares the cost of living of partc- matin- g
ones The ACCRA specifies the sizes and
brands of items pneed for the survey, so you an
comparing apples and apples, not apples and
oranges," says Ms. Pinkstaff, who gathered Co-lumbia's
pnce- in- f onnanon m October for the sur
vey
The survey was not published until this month
because every price had to be checked and re- check- ed
before it was fed into a computer If
pnees in any city seemed unusually high or low,
the pnees were re- check- ed.
Ms. Pinkstaff warns against reading too much
into the 4CCRA index, because she says it is not a
measure of inflation
An increase or decrease m a city's mdpr from
quarter to quarter means only that the average
pnees in the entire survey have changed. Because
different chambers of commerce participate in
each survey, comparisons mng 4tis are valid
only in one quarter
Columbia has participated in the ACCRA sur-vey
on and off since at least 1970 Businesses and
the University need to know the information it
provides People call the Chamber of Commerce
to ask how Columhia compares with the rest of the
country in many different areas, Ms. Pinkstaff
says
Three children found suf ocated
in K. C.; mother semi- conscio- us
KANSAS CITY, Mo ( UPI) An
unemployed welfare mother, found
se& n- ccasco- u3 from an apparent
drag overdose and lying near the
traahbag- wrappe- d bodies of her
three young daughters, Thursday
was held in a mental- healt- h lnsota- tto- a
for further questioning in the
An autopsy snowed the girls died
from suffocation inside the bags Al-though
no charges were filed, pohce
said all three cases were being
treated as homicides.
A police spokesman said A wonld
he several days before thpy would be
a& te to talk with the mother, identi-fied
by police as Cheryl Rogers, 23
The bodies of Shernta Hernford,
3. RocheQe Rogers, 2, and Tausha
Berriford, S months, were found late
Wednesday after a neighbor became
worried when Miss Rogers failed to
answer a knock at the door
When police arrived, they found
the woman on the floor, nude and
semi- conscio- us The children were
lying mtwo of the low- inco- me apart-ment's
three upstairs bedrooms,
stuffed into plastictrash& ags.
Detective Floyd Smith said it did
not appear that the children bad
been dead very long. There were no
visible signs of violence
According to officers, the home
showed no signs of forced entry, al-though
appeared the chest of draw-ers
in one bedroom had been ran-sacked.
Police said a fourth child, Thomas,
5, who had been plaving outside the
two- stor- y apartment when the bodies
were found, spent the night with rel-atives.
1 1 cant figure it out," said Kitty
Joski, a property manager at the
federally subsidized apartments.
" She had never shown any signs of
using any drugs. There were no com-plaints,
no problems.''
Records show Miss Rogers moved
into the complex about two years ago
and immediately filed for federal as-sistance.
She claimed Social Secun
ty as her only income
" She was a very nice and very
peaceful young lady" said Allan
Rhodes, a neighbor
Neighbors said the woman was
talking with neighbors on her porch
early Wednesday afternoon and in-vited
one of mem to visit her later m
the day, police said. It was that
neighbor who became worned when
Miss Rogers failed to respond to the
doorbell.
J 875- 50- 50
yJfaMlsTOPPgSS
&. STJ? opcbea- tebcclumo- a
V VgT CK3i 9 CXAAClBC
tciay
2-- 10 pjn. Home, Lawn and
Garden Show, Beanies Center
Adult tickets ar $ 3, children
under 12, 75 cents, children un-der
sir, free
ftgairagaa , , yft
ClaasfBwi ..,... , , , L gA
Citmwtt jflA
Opinion ... 4A
Sports 6- 7- A
Fee on imported oil
gets tentative support
as way to trim deficit
By Thomas J Moore
C Chicago Sun- Tim- es
WASHINGTON Hold on to your
wallet and scrutinize with great care
the latest proposal to smash OPEC
the oil cartel, while trimming the
budget deficit in the process
This feat would be accomplished
by imposing a $ 5- per- bar- rel fee on
imported oil The idea is getting at
least tentative support from impor-tant
quarters.
Senate Finance Committee Chair
man Robert Dole, R- K- an , said, It s
something becoming more do- ab- le
everyday '
Murray L. Weidenbaum, President
Reagan's senior economic adviser,
has floated the idea twice in the past
week.
What makes this old idea dramati-cally
new and different is mounting
evidence that, after nine years of es-calation,
oil pnees are now declining
and may continue to drop
Although the posted price for a
barrel of crude oil from Saudi Arabia
is $ 34 a barrel, similar oil could be
bought this week m the open ( or
spct) market for $ 8 less.
Even the more expensive oil pro-duced
m Libya and Nigeria was sell-ing
for $ 7 below the official price
A growing number of on analysts
are predicting that lower demand
will force down the price of oil per-manently
This could be a bonanza
for most of the industrialized world,
aUofTutg faster economic growth
with less inflation.
Now is the fame to hammer anoth-er
blow to an already- weakene- d car-tel
by imposing an import fee that
may further reduce imports, accord-ing
to arguments advanced by those
IsasagM
boosting the import fee
Declining oil pnees and lower in-flation
also would make the fee easi
er for the American public to swal-low
Instead of forcing rising
gasoline prices even higher, an im-port
fee m this climate might keep
energy pnees leveL
If ever a simple proposition were
pregnant with far- reachi- ng implica-tions
and hidden costs to the consum-er,
the import fee is it.
Here are some of the more lmpor
tant implications
The biggest cost to the Amen-can
public interestingly would not
be the ( 5- a- bar- rel fee added to UJS
oil imports, which account for onl
one- thir- d of consumption. An import
fee would also tend to raise all do-mestic
oil pnees by the same
amount. The difference to consum-ers
and the economy is substantial
The import fee would yield $ 9 billion
but the total cost to the consumers,
inrlnding the effects on domestic
price would be some $ 25 MDion.
If oil prices were indeed to fall
$ 5 per barrel and stay there, it would
create potentially enormous finan-cial
losses for the o industry The
industry has a 1- bfl-
Lou barrel inven-tory
of cnide oil and petroleum prod-ucts.
If pnees go down and stay
there the financial lasses to the oil m- dus- try
on inventory alone could be
heavy
k-- The federal government could
lose more frcm" declining oil prices
than the oil tedsstry That's because
( See DROP, Page jgA)

74th Year No. 156 Good Morning! It's, Frida. March 19. 1982 2 Sections 18 Page. 25 i ents
Intense weather approaching Missouri
Fran staff and wire reports
A late- wint- er storm brewing m the Rockies
could trigger tornadoes and severe thunder-storms
through a wide area of mid- Amen- ca
today, the director of the National Severe
Storms Forecast Center has warned.
" Present indications are that this outbreak
wQI be more intense than the one this past
Monday mat spawned 23 tornadoes over Ok-lahoma,
Kansas and Missouri with five fatal- me- s
and millions of dollars worth of destruc-tion,''
Director Fred Ostby said Thursday
" It could be a dud, but it looks pretty po-tent,"
he said of the developing system. Ost-by
identified the areas most likely to be hit
by violent weather today as eastern Oklaho-ma
and Kansas, the northern half of Arkan-sas,
western Kentucky, the southern two- thir- ds
of Tflmrng and Indiana, and all of Mis- soo- n.
The local Weather Service was predicting
thunderstorms for the Cdumbia area
throughout today and into the evening
Ostby said it was too early to pinpoint se--
Forecaster calls storm ' pretty potent'
vere weather activity but advised keeping a
dose watch on the sky
" It's not producing much right now,' Ost
by said. " There was a lot of ram in Cahfor
ma. It's now into the Rocky Mountains
When it gets back over the Plains, it can re- inten- sify
AH our models from computers
are telling us a consistent story that it looks
like a real intense storm."
Ostby warned earlier this week that he ex
pected ' a rather active tornado season" this
year because of the relative rairp dti" ng the
past couple of years.
' We had 773 tornadoes last year, but the
number of killer tornadoes was down," he
said. " You just can't keep going on like that
year after year We normally have more
man 100 a year killed in tornadoes. Last year
there were 24, an an- tu- ne record low "
As Missouri braced for more severe
storms, a request for state aid to Johnson
County was presented officials m the wake of
Monday's hailstorm, which did an estimated
$ 15 million to $ 30 million damage there. War- rensbu- rg
Mayor Delores Hudson explained
Thursday that the range of estimated loss
was so broad because damage reports con-tinued
to pour in.
The hailstorm was part of the same sys-tem
that spawned the five tornadoes that
battered three counties south of Columbia,
causing an estimated $ 7 million m damage
Warrensburg suffered the heaviest damage
as golfball- siz- e hail pounded the aty for
nearly 10 minutes Monday night.
Mrs. Hudson said all of the city's 3,000 liv-ing
units were damaged. The downtown area
looked as ' if it had been shelled from the
second floor up, she said.
The hail caused roof damage to several
buildings and shattered about 3 000 windows
at Cental Missouri State University, public
relations director Carl Foster said.
Earl Bamhart of the state disaster plan-ning
and operations office toured Johnson
County Wednesday
Ostby said the damage would rank the
storm among the worst in state history
Other parts of the Midwest also are suffer
mg the effects of late- wint- er storms
The approaching thunderstorms promise
to swell muddy nvers even higher across
southern Great Lakes states where near- reco- rd
floods have dnven Hmiis from their
homes and pushed property damage past $ 31
million.
Thousands of volunteers in Fort Wayne
Ind , shored weakened rfjfcpg noldmg back
tons of water from the flooded Maumee, St.
Joseph and St Marys nvers
Workers packed sandbags around 4S
houses next to a dike that began to rupture
Wednesday night.
A wall of water will sweep through the
area causing the destruction of hundreds of
houses," Mayor Winfield Moses predicted in
the face of threats that the dike will burst
without more protection
Damage to the aty of 172,000 already has
reached $ 20 million as the greenish- brow- n
waters crested at second- stor- y levels
Wednesday
A nationwide appeal was issued by the Sal
vation Army for clothes, food, bedding and
personal supplies for the 8 500 people evac
uated in Fort Wayne
Five days of flooding in Indiana, Ohio and
Michigan, and a flurry of tornadoes that
raked the Plains earlier in the week killed at
least 15 people
Volunteers in the Illinois communities of
Rome and Spring Bay upstream from Peona
buftt sandbag dikes to contain the Illinois
River, expected to crest at 25 7 feet ( 7 7 me-ters)
7 feet ( 2.1 meters) over flood stage
Most of Peona s Water Street which runs
parallel to the nver was under water Thurs-day
lone show
A roomful of dreams
tantalizes Its visitors
ByJElieLobbia
BggsoQrian staff writer
Vivian HbHoway recently moved
into Senas' citizens' housing m Cali-fornia,
Mo. Her apartment is fur-nished,
and she isn t looking to build
anew home.
But mat didnt stop Ms HoEoway
from attending the opening of the
fifth annual Home, Lawn and Gar-den
Show Thursday atrthe Untversi
ty's Heames Center
" It reminds me of a fair," Ms Hol- low- ay
says. " This is the first tune
I've been to one of these shows, but
Fd come back again even if I weren't
gomg to buy anything '
The show does have a fan -- like at-mosphere
with luxurious and innova-tive
items such as whirlpools, name- fitne- ss
equipment nH solar- heatin- g
systems among more than ISO exhib-its.
A 20- by- SO- f-oot
( ft- b- y 18- mete- r)
replica of a showboat and river town
add to the almost dreamlike nature
of the show, sponsored by the Home- bande- rs
Association of Mid- Missou-- n.
The theme of me show, " The Great
American Dream It's still afforda- ble,-"
suggests that perhaps the
Ammran ideal of home ownership
has become a dream deferred.
High interest rates, plummeting
housing starts and an overall slug
gish market have made the Great
American Dream of owning a home
just that an unfulfilled fantasy
Bat the Hamebuflders Association
and Charlie Page Enterprises are of
fenng Missounans a chance to see
some of their dreams come to life
Stefanie Skala, executive secre
tary of the Hamebuflders Associa-tion,
says " This is an opportunity
tor people in the home building in-dustry
to get together and show their
wares.
Essentially, we are here to pro-vide
information, to consumers, but
some booths do sell things here It's
good consumer contact for them."
Delson Morns of UJ5. Steel agrees
He says his company has partici-pated
in the snows for the last five
years, and it always has been profit-able
Its definitely a good business
generator," Morns says We get a
lot of inquiries from people about
things sifcp siaacg for their hnyrppg "
Other local merchants, such as
Steve Dexter of The Woodworks,
Ltd., or Liza Healy Hogan of ERA
Real Estate say that while they may
not make a lot of sales at the show, it
helps to increase the public s aware-ness
of theirservices.
Displays are not limited to home- relat- ed
. terns. Tmftan jewelry and
gas- power- ed hang gliders are also
among the attractions.
Charlie Page, exhibit manager,
says be expects about 15,000 people
to attend the show, which runs
through Sunday The show runs from
2 to 10 pjn. today, noon to 10 pjn.
Saturday and noon to 6 pjn. Sunday
Mr and Mrs. Larry Hoyt of Laddo- m- a,
Mo , say they cant afford most
of the items on display, but came to
the show " just for ideas.'
Hoyt says. This is the first time
I've been here, and mere are a lot of
thmgs I see that I would like to do
myself, Use build some kitchen cab-inets
'
Stacse Smith, 5, right, and her sister, Shellie, 10, appear en-vious
of Ben Randolph 8 Ben s parents John and Diane Ran
dolph, 104 Aldeah Ave have an exhibit at the Rome Show The
girls are the daughters of David and Charla Smith Route 2 Columbia's an economical home
By Ftse Fuller
BflBWitrtan wforff writer
Good news from the Amencan Chamber of
Commerce Researchers Association It is cheaper
to fare in Columbia than in the average Amencan
aty 7.9 percent cheaper, to be exact
Colombia's fourth quarter index was 92.1 m the
group's 1381 Cost of Living Survey, which included
236 cities.
In the survey, an average aty would have a cost
of living index of 100 Net surprisingly, New York
City's cost of ! mag is expensive, with an index of
greater than 130
The survey results may help offset the news of
record unemployment in the county reported ear-lier
tots month. The January unemployment fig-ure
for Boone County was 6.3 percent up from
43 in December The national unemployment rate
forJanuary was 8L5 percent
The index is based on prices of 59 items that a
middle- manageme- nt executive family might pur-chase,
according to Stephanie Pinkstaff of the
Cost of living less
than U. S. average
Consumer Concerns Division of the Columbia
Chamber of Commerce
The items fall in six categories, and each aty
gets an index for each category as well as an over
all index.
For Columbia, the six indexes were ffi 1 for uti-lities,
88.4 fw- boustn-g,
91 4 for transportation 954
for grocery items, 95 7 for miscellaneous goods
and services and 98.9 for health care
The survey compares the cost of living of partc- matin- g
ones The ACCRA specifies the sizes and
brands of items pneed for the survey, so you an
comparing apples and apples, not apples and
oranges," says Ms. Pinkstaff, who gathered Co-lumbia's
pnce- in- f onnanon m October for the sur
vey
The survey was not published until this month
because every price had to be checked and re- check- ed
before it was fed into a computer If
pnees in any city seemed unusually high or low,
the pnees were re- check- ed.
Ms. Pinkstaff warns against reading too much
into the 4CCRA index, because she says it is not a
measure of inflation
An increase or decrease m a city's mdpr from
quarter to quarter means only that the average
pnees in the entire survey have changed. Because
different chambers of commerce participate in
each survey, comparisons mng 4tis are valid
only in one quarter
Columbia has participated in the ACCRA sur-vey
on and off since at least 1970 Businesses and
the University need to know the information it
provides People call the Chamber of Commerce
to ask how Columhia compares with the rest of the
country in many different areas, Ms. Pinkstaff
says
Three children found suf ocated
in K. C.; mother semi- conscio- us
KANSAS CITY, Mo ( UPI) An
unemployed welfare mother, found
se& n- ccasco- u3 from an apparent
drag overdose and lying near the
traahbag- wrappe- d bodies of her
three young daughters, Thursday
was held in a mental- healt- h lnsota- tto- a
for further questioning in the
An autopsy snowed the girls died
from suffocation inside the bags Al-though
no charges were filed, pohce
said all three cases were being
treated as homicides.
A police spokesman said A wonld
he several days before thpy would be
a& te to talk with the mother, identi-fied
by police as Cheryl Rogers, 23
The bodies of Shernta Hernford,
3. RocheQe Rogers, 2, and Tausha
Berriford, S months, were found late
Wednesday after a neighbor became
worried when Miss Rogers failed to
answer a knock at the door
When police arrived, they found
the woman on the floor, nude and
semi- conscio- us The children were
lying mtwo of the low- inco- me apart-ment's
three upstairs bedrooms,
stuffed into plastictrash& ags.
Detective Floyd Smith said it did
not appear that the children bad
been dead very long. There were no
visible signs of violence
According to officers, the home
showed no signs of forced entry, al-though
appeared the chest of draw-ers
in one bedroom had been ran-sacked.
Police said a fourth child, Thomas,
5, who had been plaving outside the
two- stor- y apartment when the bodies
were found, spent the night with rel-atives.
1 1 cant figure it out," said Kitty
Joski, a property manager at the
federally subsidized apartments.
" She had never shown any signs of
using any drugs. There were no com-plaints,
no problems.''
Records show Miss Rogers moved
into the complex about two years ago
and immediately filed for federal as-sistance.
She claimed Social Secun
ty as her only income
" She was a very nice and very
peaceful young lady" said Allan
Rhodes, a neighbor
Neighbors said the woman was
talking with neighbors on her porch
early Wednesday afternoon and in-vited
one of mem to visit her later m
the day, police said. It was that
neighbor who became worned when
Miss Rogers failed to respond to the
doorbell.
J 875- 50- 50
yJfaMlsTOPPgSS
&. STJ? opcbea- tebcclumo- a
V VgT CK3i 9 CXAAClBC
tciay
2-- 10 pjn. Home, Lawn and
Garden Show, Beanies Center
Adult tickets ar $ 3, children
under 12, 75 cents, children un-der
sir, free
ftgairagaa , , yft
ClaasfBwi ..,... , , , L gA
Citmwtt jflA
Opinion ... 4A
Sports 6- 7- A
Fee on imported oil
gets tentative support
as way to trim deficit
By Thomas J Moore
C Chicago Sun- Tim- es
WASHINGTON Hold on to your
wallet and scrutinize with great care
the latest proposal to smash OPEC
the oil cartel, while trimming the
budget deficit in the process
This feat would be accomplished
by imposing a $ 5- per- bar- rel fee on
imported oil The idea is getting at
least tentative support from impor-tant
quarters.
Senate Finance Committee Chair
man Robert Dole, R- K- an , said, It s
something becoming more do- ab- le
everyday '
Murray L. Weidenbaum, President
Reagan's senior economic adviser,
has floated the idea twice in the past
week.
What makes this old idea dramati-cally
new and different is mounting
evidence that, after nine years of es-calation,
oil pnees are now declining
and may continue to drop
Although the posted price for a
barrel of crude oil from Saudi Arabia
is $ 34 a barrel, similar oil could be
bought this week m the open ( or
spct) market for $ 8 less.
Even the more expensive oil pro-duced
m Libya and Nigeria was sell-ing
for $ 7 below the official price
A growing number of on analysts
are predicting that lower demand
will force down the price of oil per-manently
This could be a bonanza
for most of the industrialized world,
aUofTutg faster economic growth
with less inflation.
Now is the fame to hammer anoth-er
blow to an already- weakene- d car-tel
by imposing an import fee that
may further reduce imports, accord-ing
to arguments advanced by those
IsasagM
boosting the import fee
Declining oil pnees and lower in-flation
also would make the fee easi
er for the American public to swal-low
Instead of forcing rising
gasoline prices even higher, an im-port
fee m this climate might keep
energy pnees leveL
If ever a simple proposition were
pregnant with far- reachi- ng implica-tions
and hidden costs to the consum-er,
the import fee is it.
Here are some of the more lmpor
tant implications
The biggest cost to the Amen-can
public interestingly would not
be the ( 5- a- bar- rel fee added to UJS
oil imports, which account for onl
one- thir- d of consumption. An import
fee would also tend to raise all do-mestic
oil pnees by the same
amount. The difference to consum-ers
and the economy is substantial
The import fee would yield $ 9 billion
but the total cost to the consumers,
inrlnding the effects on domestic
price would be some $ 25 MDion.
If oil prices were indeed to fall
$ 5 per barrel and stay there, it would
create potentially enormous finan-cial
losses for the o industry The
industry has a 1- bfl-
Lou barrel inven-tory
of cnide oil and petroleum prod-ucts.
If pnees go down and stay
there the financial lasses to the oil m- dus- try
on inventory alone could be
heavy
k-- The federal government could
lose more frcm" declining oil prices
than the oil tedsstry That's because
( See DROP, Page jgA)